Coors Porcelain

Producing For Space

GOLDEN—Its product is in your ash tray. It's also orbiting the earth in the communications satellite known as Telstar, and more materials from this company are parts of solar batteries. Many nose cones for various supersonic missiles come from Golden.

This is to name only a few of the more than 2,000 items produced by Coors Porcelain Co., world's largest manufacturer of laboratory porcelain equipment and industrial ceramics.

The need for glass bottles sparked formation of the porcelain plant in 1884. Adolph Coors had established a brewery which was the start of his industrial empire. He needed bottles for the beer.

Redesigning for manufacture of ovenware, dinner and art pottery in 1910 was another step toward the present position in the production of ceramics and porcelain products.

Expansion to chemical porcelain, supplied by Germany, was a vital necessity when World War I brought an abrupt halt to that product's importation almost half a century ago. Coors took up the job at that stage and has expanded continually.

Today, the porcelain and ceramics plant employs 1,100 persons. These include some of the world's best ceramic engineers.

Coors high density alumina ceramic grinding balls and lining bricks are widely used in the paint, porcelain enameling, silica and white concrete industries. The balls have almost twice the efficiency of flint grinding balls.

Many products coming from the plant are so hard that only a diamond will cut them.

In the experimental stage at Coors Porcelain is an "atomic sponge" in which scientists hope to encapsulate atomic waste. A ceramic sponge would absorb radioactive waste. Heated to a temperature of 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit, the sponge would partially fuse to form glass spheres in which radioactive nucleides would be permanently trapped.

Holding lapped tolerances to millionth of an inch, Coors manufactures a ceramic valve which results in almost perfect operation of a respirator used in homes and hospitals.

Source: Denver Post, July 3, 1963, page 14.